"Take it easy." He hoped his tone would convey nonurgency.
"We'll find something for you to do."

He wasn't particularly happy about most of what was coming off.
Giving these Svants tools was fine, but it was more important to
give them technologies. The people on the ship hadn't thought of
that. These wheels, now; machined steel hubs, steel rims, tubular
steel spokes, drop-forged and machined axles. The Svants wouldn't
be able to copy them in a thousand years. Well, in a hundred, if
somebody showed them where and how to mine iron and how to smelt
and work it. And how to build a steam engine.

He went over and pulled a hoe out of one of the bundles. Blades
stamped out with a power press, welded to tubular steel handles.
Well, wood for hoe handles was hard to come by on a spaceship, even
a battle cruiser almost half a mile in diameter; he had to admit
that. And they were about two thousand per cent more efficient than
the bronze scrapers the Svants used. That wasn't the idea, though.
Even supposing that the first wave of colonists came out in a year
and a half, it would be close to twenty years before Terran-operated
factories would be in mass production for the native trade. The idea
was to teach these people to make better things for themselves; give
them a leg up, so that the next generation would be ready for
contragravity and nuclear and electric power.

Mom didn't know what to make of any of it. Sonny did, though; he
was excited, grabbing Howell's arm, pointing, saying, "_Ghroogh_!
_Ghroogh_!" He pointed at the wheels, and then made a stooping,
lifting and pushing gesture. _Like wheelbarrow?_

"That's right." He nodded, wondering if Sonny recognized that as
an affirmative sign. "Like big wheelbarrow."

One thing puzzled Sonny, though. Wheelbarrow wheels were small--his
hands indicated the size--and single. These were big, and double.

"Let me show you this, Sonny."

He squatted, took a pad and pencil from his pocket, and drew two
pairs of wheels, and then put a wagon on them, and drew a quadruped
hitched to it, and a Svant with a stick walking beside it. Sonny
looked at the picture--Svants seemed to have pictoral sense, for
which make us thankful!--and then caught his mother's sleeve and
showed it to her. Mom didn't get it. Sonny took the pencil and
drew another animal, with a pole travois. He made gestures. A
travois dragged; it went slow. A wagon had wheels that went
around; it went fast.

So Lillian